The Tools of Conquest: An Analysis of The Twilight Zone Episode "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street"

THE TOOLS OF CONQUEST

An Analysis of

The Twilight Zone Episode:

“The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street”

Andrew Sieger                                                                                                  

asieger@yahoo.com

“Maple Street, U.S.A.  Late summer.  A tree-lined little road of front porch gliders, barbecues, the laughter of children, and the bell of an ice cream vendor.  At the sound of the roar and the flash of light, it will be precisely 6:43pm on Maple Street.

This is Maple Street on a late Saturday afternoon.  Maple Street - in the last calm and reflective moment - before the monsters came.”

The smooth yet ominous voice of the Narrator (writer, producer Rod Serling) invites us into the idyllic world of America in the year 1960.  America seemed serene and perfect yet lurking beneath the surface was the Cold War threat of nuclear annihilation, awful racial divisions and overt sexism.  America is yet to be shattered by the JFK assassination and the war in Viet Nam.  Maple Street, a microcosm for the country, is disrupted when a fiery meteor streaks across the sky.  Something unexpected arrives from the unknown.  Something alien.  Something not us.

The meteor passes overhead and knocks out all the electronic and mechanical equipment on the block goes out.  Anything mechanical is rendered useless; no transistor radios, even the automobiles are dead.  It wipes clean anything modern and technological.  This is no ordinary blackout.  The adults are at a loss.  As frightened, desperate people often do, they seek answers from anyone willing to provide them.  In this case it’s a twelve year old boy, Tommy, in cuffed blue jeans and Howdy Doody haircut, explains the meteor is a UFO from Outer Space.  It has knocked out the power as a prelude to an invasion.  He goes on to tell the crowd the aliens have sent an advance party ahead to pose as humans until the attack begins.  The Invaders are people who look and act just like everyone else but underneath they are alien.  They are other.  They don the guise of father, mother, son and daughter.  This perfect family is really a 5^th column sleeper cell determined to destroy our society. 

As the seemingly ridiculous ideas brought forth by Tommy are believed to be true, there is a montage of the terrified faces of the residents of Maple Street.  A chill runs down our spine as we see once rational people overtaken by fear and baseless nonsense.

Across the street, Les’ car starts up all by itself.  Everyone, including Les, is dumbstruck as to how and why his car’s engine fired up without anyone turning the key.  Instead of maintaining solidarity, the neighbors begin to suspiciously question, Why him? Why his car?

“He didn’t come out to look at the meteor,” a neighbor says.

Another neighbor, Charlie adds, “He always was an oddball.  Him and his whole family.  Real oddballs.”

They form a tight group, a mob, to walk over and try to get some answers.  A woman confess’ something she previously kept to herself until now.  The state of panic frees the townsfolk to unleash thoughts they would normally keep to themselves.  She has seen Les “up in the wee hours of the morning looking up to the sky. As if he was waiting for someone.  As if he was looking for something.”

Les claims to have insomnia and staring up at the star relaxes him.  On any other day that’s a believable, rational excuse but today is different.  The crowd steps back in fear.  He is no longer their friend and neighbor.  He is the other.  The power of the mob is to single out an individual and cast them as a monster.  Les, sensing their fear of him, warns them, “You’re starting something here.  That’s what you should be frightened of.  You’re letting something begin here that’s a nightmare.”

After the commercial break, night descends as the once peaceful citizens of Maple Street stand outside their homes like sentries on guard duty.  They watch Les but they also watch each other.  Charlie says, “Under normal circumstances we could let it go by.  But these aren’t normal circumstances.”

That’s the excuse of every demagogue or dictator who uses unexpected events to seize power.  He continues, “It’s like going back to the Dark Ages or something.” That’s the perfect description for what’s happening on Maple Street.  The Dark Ages were a time of fear and superstition when the mysteries of science was so far beyond the comprehension of people, they sought answers in religion, who, in turn, used fear to control them.  Witch Hunts and Inquisitions were held not as much to identify and eliminate the enemy as it was to placate and satisfy a terrified populace.  The harbinger of fear and doom in the Dark Ages, among many things, was a meteor. 

The loudest, most vocal, most accusatory fool becomes the leader of the mad, insatiable gang.  On Maple Street, that fool is Charlie.   He accuses the rational man, Steve Brand; the level headed one who tries to diffuse the situation, of being in league with the beast. 

Steve shouts at Charlie and the others, “Stop telling me who’s dangerous and who isn’t.  And who’s safe and who’s a menace.  You’re all set to find a scapegoat.  You’re all desperate to point some kind of finger at a neighbor.  Believe me friends, the only thing that’s going to happen is we’re going to eat each other up alive.”

And, unfortunately, that’s exactly what happens.

They hear footsteps approaching.  A shadow emerges from the darkness.  It slowly walks towards them.  A montage of frightened faces shows us the fear gripping and tightening the denizens of Maple Street. 

Tommy says, “It’s the monster!  It’s the monster!”

Charlie grabs a gun.  He wants to prove he’s stronger than Steve.  He has to protect the rest of us.  He shoots the monster.  With one shot this terrifying beast falls to the ground.  Finally, everyone is safe and the monster is dead. 

But it turns out the monster was fellow neighbor Pete Van Horn who, at the start of this nightmare, walked over to the next block looking for help.  Charlie realizes he murdered an innocent man and panics.  He’s sorry.  He didn’t know.  He was only trying to protect his family. 

Then the lights go on in Charlie’s house.  Why is he the only one with lights?

He’s the monster!  The horde turns on its de-facto leader, even Les joins in and says Charlie is the monster – glad the spotlight’s off him.  Les adds to the pyre by saying Charlie accused everyone else and murdered Pete Van Horne because he’s the monster.  The crowd fumes into a frenzy.  They throw rocks at Charlie and cut his forehead.  Blood drips down his face.  Desperate to save himself he offers up the real answer.  “I know who the monster is.  I know who doesn’t belong among us,” he says, “It’s the kid.  It’s Tommy.  He’s the one.”

A leader seizes power by claiming to be the one, the only one, who can show you and defeat the monsters among us.  To the terrified people of Maple Street it makes sense.  Tommy knew what was going on from the start.  He knew the infiltrator’s plan.  How could he know unless he’s one of them?  Unless he’s the monster?  Steve pleads for them to stop.  The mob doesn’t want to stop.  They want to be reassured their fears are real.  They want an antidote to the evil.  They want blood. 

The pack chases after the young boy and his mother.  They stop when they see lights go on and off in different houses.  Everyone is accused of being the monster.  Total madness erupts on Maple Street.  Off kilter camera angles effectively convey the insanity.  Everyone is accused of being a monster.  Maple Street is demolished in a hail of screams, broken glass and gunshots.  Their tiny Utopia is destroyed, not by the monster, but by its own citizens. 

We pull back from the deadly lunacy to reveal who is responsible for the loss of power.  In a classic Rod Serling – Twilight Zone twist, an alien spaceship is perched on a hill overlooking the block.  Tommy was right, the meteor was a UFO.  Two Aliens watch the people rip apart their once idyllic home. 

“Throw them into darkness for a few hours and then sit back and watch the pattern repeat itself.  …They pick the most dangerous enemy they can find.  And it’s themselves.  All we need do is sit back and watch.  …The world is full of Maple Streets.  We’ll go from one to the other and we’ll let them destroy themselves.  One to the other.  One to the other.  One to the other.

 The voice of the narrator returns, “The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout.  There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices – to be found only in the minds of men.  For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own – for the children and the children yet unborn.  And the pity of it is that these cannot be confined to the Twilight Zone.”

In most cases, the enemy does not have the power to destroy our society – only we can bring end to our freedom and democracy in our own country.  This parable, written in 1960, was an allusion to communist witch hunts like the McCarthy Hearings but seeing it today reveals that Rod Serling was not commenting on any one event or person but on human nature.  He had no idea that terrorism would become the biggest fear of Americans.  But he knew the dangers of a mob and the power of the mob mentality to overtake the minds of people.  He wanted to show it in all its ugliness and stupidity.  He wanted to show us how not to act and the dire consequences if we give in to fear and prejudice.  Our destruction will not come with bombs or bullets.  It will arrive when we form an irrational horde and turn on our friends and neighbors because they look, act or worship differently than us.  Then we become the monsters.

Rod Serling usually ends his narration in the opposite way he does here.  He often says, “…and these things can only happen in the Twilight Zone.” But for this very special episode with a very special message - a message that could save this country in the event of another terrorist attack - he warns us that it could happen anytime, anywhere.  We all live on Maple Street.  We are all citizens of… The Twilight Zone.